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O how Fortune,
inopportune,
apes the moon's inconstancy:
waxing, waning,
losing, gaining,
life treats us detestably:
first oppressing
then caressing
shifts us like pawns in her play:
destitution,
restitution,
mixes and melts them away.

Fate, as vicious
as capricious,
whirling your merry-go-round:
evil doings,
worthless wooings,
crumble away to the ground:
darkly stealing,
unrevealing,
working against me you go:
for your measure
of foul pleasure
I bare my back to your blow.

Noble actions,
true transactions,
no longer fall to my lot:
powers to make me
then to break me
all play their part in your plot:
now seize your time -
waste no more time,
pluck these poor strings and let go:
since the strongest
fall the longest
let the world share in my woe.

Fortune plango vulnera

I cry the cruel cuts of Fate
with eyes worn red from weeping,
whose fickle favours travel straight
back into her keeping:
as ye read, so shall ye find -
luck comes curly-headed
from the front, but round behind
not a hair is threaded!

Dame Fortune once invited me
to enjoy her blessing:
to riches' throne exalted me,
caring and caressing:
but from maximum renown,
garlanded and fêted,
Fate stepped up and threw me down -
glory dissipated!

Fortune's wheel goes round and round,
down go all my talents;
others rising from the ground
fly too high to balance:
so beware Fate's old routine,
kings and lords and ladies -
for beneath her throne lies Queen
Hecuba in Hades.

Carmina Burana has long been a favorite... and I own several recordings. For more information on the background of the work, including a fascinating graphic of a wheel of fortune that looks oh-so-familiar ( ), go here: